Hacker News Reader

Comment by scotty79 | Hacker News Reader

Yes. Do you think that believing that women are lesser form of humans is better?

The word you're looking for is "egalitarianism".

"Feminism" means different things to different people. If you use "feminism" as a synonym for "gender egalitarianism", then that's not entirely incorrect, but you are picking a fight that will be full of straw man arguments, because other people use the word differently.

Even egalitarianism isn't necessarily an unequivocal good, it depends on your goal function. Individual self actualization isn't universally accepted as an appropriate goal for society, neither is the idea that all people are born equal.

(I happen to share those values but I know people and entire societies with belief systems that don't.)

The issue, I think, is that the word "Feminism" isn't used as having a consistent meaning?

Like, it is kind of a coalitional word, I think. Of course, there are a number of ideas in common amongst the various ways it has been used,

and among those ideas held in common, are "women often experience unfair disadvantages due to how women are treated compared to men." and "that should be addressed/remedied in some way.",

and these statements are true.

But, the word "feminism" is not understood to refer solely to those statements held in common. If it was, there would be no such thing as different "waves" of feminism.

Rather, the word "feminism", at least often, is used to refer to "those claims made/supported by a coalition of people calling themselves "feminists".

(Personally, I try to avoid actually using the word "feminism", rather than referring to it, because I think that thinking of it as the name of "a thing" risks confusion which I'd rather avoid?)

That is a false dichotomy. There are many other beliefs incompatible with feminism that don't include believing that women are "lesser".

Such as?

such as believing that females and males are better optimized for certain tasks

I don't think that's incompatible with feminism. I think feminism just opposes putting up gender barriers of any kind in the way of any activity despite of what anyone thinks about who's optimized for what.

I mean the discussion is about what constitutes a barrier, and how to prevent them, but the general sentiment that's still the core of the idea is unequivocally good.

Anything else?

I am a humanist. Women are neither lesser nor greater than men, just as the yin is not lesser than the yang or vice versa. Women and men are not the same--our bodies are undeniably different. There are strains of feminism which blame men collectively for all ills in society. I do not view such ideology as "unequivocally good."

> There are strains of feminism which blame men collectively for all ills in society

I find that these views are spread not so much by strains of feminism or anyone seeking to improve society, as by the aforementioned people using feminist frameworks to justify their own takes on gender essentialism and bigotry.

I don't consider this feminism since it does nothing to improve anything for anyone, but yes, the lack of intolerance for misandry among feminist spaces is one of my big issues with it.

> I don't consider this feminism... but yes, the lack of intolerance for misandry among feminist spaces is one of my big issues with it.

This is called the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. ("No true feminist would be intolerant or misandrous.")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

I will agree that feminism is "unequivocally good" if we first define it thusly then discount every feminist who is less-than-good :)

You can't really talk about these things very rigidly. Otherwise you'd have to conclude that any religion is only as good as the worst inhumane madman that adopted it as his motivation.

I am simply observing that "feminism" is unworthy of the label "unequivocally good". I agree that "religion" is also not "unequivocally good". And one doesn't need to invoke Torquemada to make that claim; religion (or any -ism) imposes rules/structures on society that incur complex trade-offs, such that one can't say they are wholly good 100% of the time.

One is Scot by being a resident of Scotland. One is a feminist by engaging with feminist theory and/or activism, mainly in the context of trying to shift attitudes away from misogyny. Using feminist lingo to justify misandry is no more feminism than using awareness of cognitive biases to troll people online is philosophy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com